Werewolves are, on average, much better drivers than humans. They have vastly better senses, better reflexes, and seemed to be more decisive in general. As a result, driving with a werewolf was usually much safer than driving with a human.

On average.

"Jesus Christ!" I swore as the Alpha took a turn 30 miles faster than was reasonable. The van bouncing and shuttering so violently that I felt like I was in the world's least comfortable trampoline.

I was sitting behind the driver's seat, gripping the headrest in front of me for dear life. To my right sat a man who looked to be in his early twenties, maybe a year or two younger than me – though age could be deceptive with werewolves. He had slightly pinched features that were partially hidden behind a pair of thick glasses. Which I noted as odd despite my panic. Werewolves rarely needed things like glasses or hearing aids.

The werewolf was also holding onto the seat in front of him with an expression that matched my own.

There was another werewolf riding shotgun, but I ignored her for now. I needed some information before we went charging in. I looked to the man at my right, not wanting to distract the Alpha driving and get us pancaked against a tree.

"How long ago was the possession?" I had already asked the Alpha, but I wanted to double-check. I was a little proud that I managed to keep my voice firm even though my knuckles were white as my fingers dug into the headrest.

The werewolf answered immediately, and to his credit, his voice was even steadier than mine. "Eight minutes ago, max."

That matched the Alphas estimate. They must've hauled ass to the graveyard as soon as it happened. If it'd only been eight minutes ago, we had more time to work with than I'd feared.

The relief that started to build quickly dissipated as I put two and two together. Even driving like we were, there were only so many places within five minutes of the graveyard on this road. Plenty of them were hideously dangerous, but only a few had ghosts with both the strength and inclination to possess someone.

"Where exactly are we heading?" Once again, the man answered immediately. I wish everyone was this collected during a possession.

"We're almost there, it's a massive mansion, it –"

"Did you see what the ghost looked like?" I cut in. He nodded. "Not a great look, but I saw him from outside. Tall, wiry, balding on top with a big mustache."

"He was wearing a brown jacket and dark pants. I'd guess somewhere around nineteenth century in fashion." The werewolf riding shotgun added.

I slammed my fist into the seat. "Shit!" They had stumbled into the Noose Maker's Manor. They were lucky any of them had gotten out. This changed the timetables. We'd be lucky if the possession lasted an hour before Niall took control.

Everyone who wasn't driving was staring at me after my outburst. "We don't have much time," I addressed both of them and just hoped that the Alpha could spare enough attention to hear my words. "You all just waltzed into the Noose Maker's Manor. The fact that you're all alive right now is a little amazing. Normally I'd prefer to give you a history lesson on the place, but we're going to have to settle for the bare essentials."

I started ticking points off on my hand.

"The ghost's name is Niall, he is old, he is powerful, and he is absolutely insane. When we go in, chances are he'll have moved your friend, so we're going to have to track him down before we can do anything else. Naill's scent is whiskey, sweat, and rope. That's what we need to follow. While we do that, Niall's going to be doing his best to kill us all. If you all went in there, I assume you saw the type of fight we're in for."

I got two nods, so I continued. "I can help your friend, but the Noose Maker isn't some freshly dead ghost on a mad rampage. If I'm going to put him to rest, it will take a lot of power, so I can't just go throwing it out at random. I'll have to be close. But I'm a squishy human, I am good at dodging, but I'm still going to need help to get to your friend."

"We will keep you safe." The Alpha had been silent since we got in the car, so it took me a moment to realize she'd spoken. I looked into the rearview mirror. The Alpha took her eyes off the road for a terrifying moment and met my gaze in the reflection. I stared into dark blue as she spoke again. "We will keep you safe."

~<>~

It wasn't long until we reached the manor. The Alpha going up the paved drive at an even more terrifying speed. The second the van skidded to a stop, we were out the door and running. I was, of course, the slowest of the lot, but I still made good time as we rushed to the mansion.

The werewolves stood a few feet away from the barrier, waiting. That had to go before we could do anything else.

I ran up to the simmering air that marked the border. It had been almost a year since I last fought a ghost this powerful, and I still hadn't fully recovered from it.

A worm of fear twisted in my gut. I wasn't an idiot... well, that was debatable, epically considering what I was about to do. My point was that I knew what I was going into. And it scared me. I let the fear stay for a moment, acknowledging the emotion. Then I pushed it away. I had made this particular choice a long time ago, and I wasn't about to start second-guessing it now.

I took a deep breath, then unveiled my aura. It spooled out around me, covering more than a dozen feet in a rough circle. My magical senses extended with my aura, and as they brushed against the barrier, they told me that the thing probably wrapped around the entire mansion. However, I had a feeling it was weak until Niall felt something approach it.

This was his haunt, a place he'd spent so much time in that he had fused with it. As a result, he could affect things in the mansion with less effort and on a larger scale than he could manage anywhere else. That, combined with his age and power, was why he could pull something like this barrier off at all.

I didn't hold back like I had earlier. This wasn't a quick task that I could immediately veil myself after. I pulled every wrap I had on my aura off, leaving it to hang around me in full.

My magic wasn't good for any fight that didn't involve a ghost. It couldn't set a rampaging monster on fire. It couldn't keep the rain off me or heat up my toast. But a lack of versatility and a lack of magical power were two different things.

My aura held so much magic packed into it that even a non-mage would see the air around me ripple with purple and green after images.

Magic wasn't just about brute strength. Just like with your body, where and how you applied force mattered. But having a truckload of force certainly helped.

I reached out with a thought and began to shift my aura. It was kind of like moving a muscle, except the muscle could be shifted in any direction you could think of, and you could also change its shape. I guess it was kind of like a tongue... actually scratch that. I hate that mental image.

I shaped my aura, condensing it until it resembled a lumpy club instead of a loose cloud. Then I reared my aura back and struck the barrier. Boom! I repeated the process, slamming my will against the wall like a magical battering ram.

Boom!

Boom!

I wasn't trying to get any specific effect. I wasn't even using my magic, really. Aside from the slight drain it took on me with each strike, it barely cost me at all. The barrier was made with the ghost's magic, which I could counter. The problem was Niall was strong, and I was about to fight him on his home turf. He would have power in spades, enough that I actually needed to be smart about my power use if I didn't want to fall back on my shroud. Which was always an option, but an option that would weaken me in the long term.

Ghosts didn't have auras like living things, but some of their magic worked on similar principles. For example, while this barrier used up magic to stay in place, it was also an extension of the Noose Maker's Will. Blasting someone's physical body away just took magic and a little bit of his focus. Keeping out my aura as it smashed against the barrier again and again took a lot more than a little focus. And right now, Niall was in a battle of wills against the werewolf he was attempting to possess, which meant he had very little to spare for anything else.

I slammed my aura forward again, but instead of backing away for another strike, I kept it there. Pushing for all I was worth.

The barrier buckled, then gave. Crumbling against the force of my will. Purple and green mixed with Dark amber in a flash, then vanished with a blast of wind and a distant wail.

Before the sound had faded, the werewolves were moving. The Alpha rushed ahead to the door while the other two flanked me. The formation made sense. As long as we stuck to it, the werewolves would be able to cover just about any attack coming my way.

The Alpha walked straight up to the massive double doors. I had expected her to head for the broken window, but after a moment's thought, I understood. While all of the werewolves could quickly get through with a simple hop, I'd need to be carried or climb through like an old man to avoid getting sliced open on shards of broken glass. Either way, we would be sitting ducks for Neill.

The Alpha stopped in front of the doors, then raised her foot. She looked comical, standing there, foot raised to kick open doors that were twice her height.

Then she lashed out, and the doors buckled. She kicked again, causing the doors to rattle in their frame. She kicked, again and again, creating a cacophony rattling crashes. It grew louder and louder until I thought the doors were going to burst from their frame. Instead, after one particularly vicious kick, something snapped, and the doors swung open. From the glint of twisted metal, it looked like the Alpha had kicked until the lock broke.

It wasn't a small lock.

For a breath, I took in the mansion. The sweeping windows, vast open space, beautiful paintings, and the general elegance of a beautifully crafted room.

Then a storm of stools, rugs, and knives took up the majority of my attention.

We started running towards the flying projectiles.

The Alpha grabbed one of the stools, swung it into a rug to knock it off course, ignored the several knives that slammed into her side, then grabbed the second stool and started swinging it around as well. Well shit, this was certainly going better than I had expected.

We continued to run, following the Alpha as she carved a path through the storm of household objects. It was a little bit like trying to sprint through an IKEA during a hurricane. Nevertheless, we made good time, the werewolves on my flanks protecting me from the brunt of the storm on their sides while I dodged whatever else slipped through.

I wouldn't have been able to make it through the whole storm without help. There were just too many projectiles moving too quickly. But this was far from my first haunted house, combine that with a life spent around ghosts, and I was very, very good at dodging.

We continued through the chaotic mess. The world condensing down to blurring motion, grunts of exertion, and the sound of the house wailing around us. I dodged and ducked and whatever other adjective that meant I got out of the way.

The werewolves dodged some, but they tanked plenty of hits. Their wounds starting to heal up almost as soon as they happened.

The pattern broke slightly as we reached the stairwell. We were halfway up when a sofa flew down towards us like an unwieldy javelin. Without a seconds pause, the Alpha jumped several steps ahead, then crouched and dropped her hands, like she was setting for a volleyball.

The couch slammed into her with a thud.

Even when you know you're looking at someone with supernatural strength, your brain still expects something as large as a sofa moving at fastball speeds to blast them off their feet.

But instead of getting knocked back, the Alpha grunted, then heaved. She flung the couch up and over like a giant volleyball.

The sofa smacked into a wall with a crunch, and we kept moving before it could pick itself back up and follow.

The second floor was a mess of hallways that intersected at seemingly random junctions. Despite that, and the waves of household objects still pelting us, we didn't get lost. My very human nose could smell it on the air—whiskey, exertion, and old rope. The werewolves, with their far, far beyond human noses, had no trouble closing in on that smell like it was a damn GPS signal.

A small part of me that wasn't focused on staying in one piece marveled at the beauty of this place. The dark walls were adorned with paintings, and the dark wood floor we sprinted over gleamed like it had been installed yesterday.

Niall kept this place spotless.

Which wasn't surprising, conceding what I knew of him. Niall The Noose Maker, the Mad Groundskeeper. He'd killed dozens of people, men, women, children. It didn't matter. You stepped onto the manor grounds, and a noose was made for you. No exceptions

It wasn't a shock that a man who'd killed anyone who stepped foot in the manor kept said manor clean.

We turned a corner, and I barely managed to drop to my knees in time to slide under an empty picture frame that had gotten by the Alpha. I threw myself back to my feet— ignoring the flashes of pain from my knees— and promptly smashed into the Alphas back. I bounced off with a grunt.

Ow. That felt like hitting a brick wall. My impact, pardon the pun, impacted the Alpha like she really was a brick wall. She didn't even sway on her feet. Instead, she turned to a door, indistinguishable from the others around it, and gave it a yank.

The door resisted. So, with splintering crunch, she pulled it off its hinges. Then, tossing it to the side, she turned back to the now door-less doorway. The Alpha then had to block as the door immediately flew back up to strike at her.

She smashed it to kindling. I waited for a second to see if I needed to dodge a shotgun blast of splinters. To my luck, the dead door stayed dead. I turned to the doorway, Ignoring the continued sounds of combat from behind me.

Before I even saw what was in the room, I knew we'd reached our destination. The whole time we'd ran through the house, I had felt Niall's presence itching at my skin and aura. The sensation had grown stronger when we reached the second floor. And now it felt like bugs were crawling along the edges of my aura. My magical senses were overwhelmed with Niall's presence.

The now-empty doorway revealed a small cleaning closet, brooms, dustpans, and the like lined up in orderly rows along its walls. Standing in the center, twitching violently, was a tall blond man. His eyes were closed, and his face was set into an icy mask. He had broad shoulders and the same sharply muscled build as the rest of the werewolves I'd met.

As I watched, one of his fingers broke with a snap, elongating in a sickening motion. Thick dirty blond hairs started to push out of the skin on his finger, and his fingernail and the tip of his finger began to merge and lengthen into a glossy black claw. The process continued for a few seconds then reversed itself, the image just as unpleasant in reverse.

As my aura enveloped the werewolf, I could feel the battle raging inside of him. I didn't have all the details, but I didn't want the drawbacks of getting a clearer picture. I'd used my true sight to view a possession in progress before. I didn't need to do it again.

I knew the lines and shades of color that made up the two minds and souls clashing and intermixing as they each fought for dominance.

The Alpha stepped up next to me. I looked up at her for a second, then to the door. The others had taken up guard positions.

"Well? Help him!" I ignored the anger in the werewolf's voice. I'd just met the woman, but I could still hear the desperation under the anger. I nodded, then started pushing power into the werewolf.

Magic started draining from my aura like I'd sprung a leak, which wasn't a problem since I could leak a few swimming pools of magic before I ran out. Normally my aura didn't do much to a non-ghost. It had an emotional balancing effect, evening out someone's mental state, but that was generally the extent of what it could do to a living creature. But the werewolf in front of me currently had a ghost melded with his body, which made the lines a little... blurry.

I started pushing even more power out. And just before I felt the link begin to forge, I turned to the Alpha. "Don't let me hit my head or bite my tongue off or anything, okay?" Just as she opened her mouth to respond, the link finished forging, and my world went black.

~<>~

Between one breath and the next, I went from smelling whiskey and rope to breathing in a lungful of smoke. Heat came with it, pushing against me from all around.

Then a flood of memories blindsided me.

I had to keep going. With stinging eyes, I crawled forward. With every motion, I left skin behind on the burning carpet. The pain was mind-shattering, but another feeling kept me going. Rage. My family, they had already gotten out. They hadn't even woken me up. They had abandoned me!

I stood in front of the Bronson's mansion with a bottle in one hand and a lighter in the other. The Bronson's mansion. The thought turned the aftertaste of scotch foul on my tongue.

It should have been my mansion, my business, my idea! I should be happy! Instead, I was standing here on what should've been the one-year anniversary of my success, watching a thief celebrate in my place. My hands were shaking badly enough that it took me several tries to get the lighter to catch. But they were more than steady enough to drop it into the trail of gasoline.

I ran in a crouch through the burning home, trying to stay below the smoke as much as I could. The child over my shoulders coughed and spluttered. That was fine. Coughing and spluttering meant they were still alive. But if I wanted them to stay that way, I had to get them out!

With a gasp, I shoved the memories down. More tried to rise up. No! Not right now. I could have a breakdown later when it wouldn't get someone, not to mention myself, killed.

I took a few stumbling steps, then stopped. My mind was still filled with a mess of conflicting emotions. I needed to center myself, or I was going to get killed.

I took slow, deep breaths. In. My name is Alder. I own the graveyard, I'm twenty-three, I help ghosts. Out. I repeated the process several more times until I felt steady enough to pick a fight with a ghost. The smoke had gotten worse, so I crouched down, trying to keep it out of my lungs. I didn't have time to search through this entire burning house. Chances were I'd die of smoke inhalation before I found them.

Luckily for me, I could cheat. I pushed my aura out in every direction. It moved through the walls, ceiling, and floor just as easily as the open air. I stopped once I felt two presences directly below me. Down I went. What little attention I spared for the house told me that it was ordinary. Family pictures lined the walls, and there were toys scattered here and there. It would've been perfectly normal if it hadn't been on fire.

Of course, the thought had barely finished crossing my mind before the room twisted and warped. The fire vanished, and I heard a couple's distant laughter. Then the fire was back, and I was choking on smoke.

"Dammit!" Possessions were primarily battles of will, and they took place inside the body. Or the mind if we're being specific. And since we were in the werewolf's mind, the space around me could pull all kinds of weird shit. Though so far, this was a lot better than the last time I'd done this. That mind-scape had been a summer camp that constantly spun like it was a demented merry-go-round.

I continued on. I was pretty sure I was on the ground floor, but Niall and the werewolf were still below. So I started opening doors, searching for a basement stairwell. The house shifted around me as I did. First to what I guessed was a family dinner, judging by the sounds, then to a thunderstorm, then the house stayed on fire, but I could hear gunshots in the distance. Finally, I found the door and took the stairs at a run.

My pounding footsteps echoed out in the narrow stairwell, coming back to me distorted and loud, making it sound like a giant was barging down the steps.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and was shocked by a wall of cool air that blew away the smoke, replacing it with the smell of artificial fruit. I took in the room with a quick glance. It was a typical basement playroom. A TV and couches sat in one corner, while the other side of the room held a foosball table.

To my right was a white foldout table with several board games scattered across its surface. The center of the room had been cleared, small chairs and stands knocked aside by the two figures currently circling one another. One was the werewolf, dressed in a set of children's pajamas. That caused me to do a double-take, and I realized more was off about him.

The lines of his face were softer, as was the rest of him. And he was at least a foot shorter than he was in reality. All and all, he looked the better part of a decade younger than he appeared outside. The other figure was Niall.

He was tall, with a frame built out of whipcord and sinew, clad in dirty brown pants, a brown cap, and a dark workmen's jacket over a stained white shirt. He looked about how you would expect a deranged groundskeeper to look. However, his face stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of him. He had round cheeks and a voluminous mustache. The roundness of his face was jarring in comparison to the rest of his body.

I would've called it a friendly face if it wasn't for his eyes. Light blue and bloodshot, they stared with the kind of desperate hate that most people would never encounter in their lifetime. The look was so far past anger that it was like comparing a candle to a bonfire. Niall hated the man in front of him, hated him so fully and completely that I knew nothing else existed for him. There were no other thoughts or wants in his head, just the hate and the need to express it.

Niall lunged. He reached for the werewolf's throat while lashing out with a kick towards his shins. The werewolf managed to dodge the grasping fingers, but the kick came in too fast. It connected with an audible snap, and the werewolf went down. He didn't immediately start healing like I half expected him to.

I started moving. The werewolf drug himself away from Niall, his form shifting as he did. For a blink, he was in between a wolf monster and a man, then he was the adult I had seen before entering this little party.

The carpeted ground under the werewolf shifted into dark, polished wood. An exact match for the floors of the mansion. That was a pretty clear sign that Niall was starting to take over. The Noose Maker raised his foot to stomp down on the werewolf's other leg. One of the many downsides to all-consuming hate is its tendency to make people lose track of their surroundings.

Even though I had broken into a full sprint, and had enveloped him in my aura, Niall didn't notice me until my dropkick took him in the side. Now, I'm no heavyweight. I'm five foot nothing and made out of wire and bone. So a body slam or dropkick from me isn't what most would call intimidating. But timing matters. Niall was on one foot, with the other raised to stomp down, and I hit him center mass from a dead sprint.

Niall went tumbling. Well, he tumbled. I fell flat on my back. Right onto the one patch of hardwood. Ow. I climbed to my feet and saw Niall doing the same. "Who the hell are you?" Asked the werewolf. His voice was composed and far colder than I was expecting. I sighed as Niall finished climbing to his feet. "An idiot who doesn't say no enough." Niall charged me.

As Niall closed the distance between us with terrifying speed, I pulled my aura back. It rushed back to me until it only covered Niall and part of the room around us. The thick fog of purple and green magic slowed Niall, but not enough for me to get out of the way. His charge caught me in the shoulder and sent me spinning to the ground. I hit and rolled, ignoring the flash of pain in my shoulder. Niall stomped down where I had been, his foot slamming down with the sound, not unlike a dropped brick.

Niall was far stronger than me, and my aura was the only reason he wasn't faster too. I scrambled to my feet just in time to avoid another kick. My magic poured into Niall. It made it harder for him to move, harder for him to work his magic. A fist sailed for my cheek, and I barely managed to duck under it.

Now that he was in my aura, time was on my side. Eventually, as long as I kept pouring power on the bastard, I'd forge a link, and Niall would be forced to move on. Another fist whistled past me as I jumped to the side. Of course, I would need to live long enough to forge that link. "Die!" Niall bellowed. "Die, trespasser! Liar, trickster! Die!" His voice sounded like a shrill fog horn.

My ears rang, and I almost got hit with an elbow.

Despite the ringing pain in my ears, this was actually going pretty well. Niall's focus and magic were split between resisting my aura and trying to dominate the werewolf. Which was stopping him from doing any nasty workings on me. Well, it wasn't easy. I could dodge till the link forged. Then, as if he could read my mind, Niall stopped swinging and stood still.

Crap.

I poured even more power into the ghost, but he wasn't completely cut off since he'd already been using his magic before I enveloped him with my aura.

Niall raised his arms, his hands pressed flat against the purple and green waves crashing against him. Then he shoved like a man pushing against a collapsing roof. For an instant, my aura was blasted away from him. It wasn't free. The section of the floor he had turned shifted back into carpet. And from the corner of my eye, I saw the werewolf straighten slightly. Niall had been forced to let up on the werewolf to push my aura away.

But for an instant, Niall was free from my restriction.

A heavy noose formed in one hand. And just as my aura started to flood back in, Niall blurred towards me. He hit, and we went rolling. My aura crashed back over him, slowing him back to human speed, but he had the noose around my neck. The noose snapped taut as Niall stood, pulling me up with him. Niall had his back pressed to mine like we were doing paired stretches, with the noose going over his shoulder.

My fingers grasped the rope, trying to relieve some of the pressure, but it was cinched tight. I was being choked for the second time today. Absolutely ridiculous. As part of me began to panic, thrashing, and kicking, trying to do anything to relieve the pressure, another part of me focused on keeping my aura glued to Niall.

Even as my heart pounded in my ears and my thrashing started to slow. As my vision began to waver, I kept my aura on the ghost. And just as I began to reach out for my shroud, getting ready to permanently burn some of my magic for a burst of power, the link finished forging.